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07-01-2021, 09:25 PM | #731 |
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KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 44 - "PUNK: BACK TO FATHER”
ha ha ha ha INOUE FOREVER. You guys. Of all the ways I thought this episode could go, based on how the last one ended, it didn't even cross my mind that Wataru would use Castle Doran's way-more-of-a-problem-solving-option-than-when-Jiro-first-described-it-to-Nago Time Door to travel to 1986 and pull a reverse Back To The Future to prevent his parents from getting together. It is simultaneously absurd and poignant, which is what makes Inoue one of my favorite tokusatsu storytellers. Like, this plan of Wataru's is stupid from the jump, but also exactly the sort of thing he'd try. He's distraught over Mio's death, and his role in it, so he does what he always does when the world seems too much: he tries to disappear. But this isn't brandishing a sword at Megumi or shoving Nago. Mio is dead, and hiding away isn't going to cut it. Wataru's pain requires him to eliminate his existence, so he's going to make sure his parents don't "fall in love”. (I really enjoy the G-rated explanation of where babies come from.) So he dresses up in costumes to dissuade Otoyoa, and then he straight-up tells Yuri to go get her man back. It's a plan with a hundred down-sides and no path to success. (It also, like the entirety of this story, requires you to ignore the summer movie.) It's sweet and earnest in all the ways Wataru is famous for, while also being heartbreakingly self-loathing; which, y'know, Wataru is also famous for. It ignores a whole bunch of collateral damage (Megumi and her brother would completely cease to exist, so I guess we know how little non-Mio people matter to Wataru; pretty sure Wataru has directly or indirectly saved a ton of lives, which are now Fangire food), but this thing never even gets off the blocks. See, Wataru showed up a couple days/weeks (?) too late, since Yuri is breaking up with Otoya. Probably goes without saying, but this was one of my favorite developments in all of Kiva. The emotional maturity of Yuri to be thankful for the good times she had with Otoya, acknowledge the end of them, and choose to move on? Fantastic. And she stomps on Otoya's foot as she goes, just to let him know that he handled this less maturely than she deserved? HELL YES. It's a template for how to break up with someone, and of all the lessons a tokusatsu show can teach impressionable children, this is one of the most useful. Don't cling to a situation that is deteriorating. Understand the difference between a relationship that can be repaired, and one that needs to end. Be grateful for the positive times you shared with someone. Realize that you are allowed to still care for someone you've broken up with. For a show that has dramatized a relationship with more detail and complexity than I've ever seen a Kamen Rider series attempt, this was such a beautiful coda to a messy, fascinating couple. Having Wataru's whole Please Don't Bone time-travel plan show up in the midst of such a grown-up plotline made both of them so much better. It's that Inoue thing of combining the most ludicrous tokusatsu insanity (Kivat and Tatsulot just pop out of a wormhole when it's time to Henshin!) with straight-ahead human-scale drama that is an addictive combination for me. It spotlights how childish and ill-considered Wataru's self-negating journey is without ever really saying it out loud, and it gives weight to Yuri and Otoya's conclusion by not having Wataru's schemes amount to anything. It's totally unexpected and entirely welcome. Most of the 2008 part of this episode was devoted to Nago's new role as Replacement Shima, and that was very cute. (There's another bit where Taiga swears vengeance on Wataru for killing the lady who leapt in front of a finisher, but No Thanks.) It's a quiet little moment of Nago trying to be the boss Shima was (Nago spent half the series shitting all over Megumi, so he's well-qualified), and it's a testament to Nago's growth both dramatically and comedically that this doesn't feel like an imminently doomed promotion. (It's also a total mystery as to whether Nago was promoted by anyone, or if he's just calling dibs or whatever. Is there someone else in W.A.K.E.U.P. to handle the chain of succession?) Nago trying to hold this group together by lowering his body fat and drinking coffee is... perfect. It's just perfect. The Taiga scenes aside (No Thanks), this was a perfect episode. It's goofy and airy, but also poignant and bittersweet. It's an episode where a boy traveled back in time, dressed up as a fortune teller, and tried to persuade his father to abandon his mother so that he couldn't accidentally kill his girlfriend in the future. It's an episode where a supernaturally-gorgeous former supernatural executioner finds hope in love. It's an episode where a misguided, heartbroken young man enacts a foolhardy plan that fails, but may have given an idea to an all-powerful villain. It's utterly ridiculous and emotionally honest. It's characters giving rise to plots, instead of plots grinding down characters. It's an unbeatable episode of Kamen Rider Kiva. INOUE FOREVER.
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07-01-2021, 09:42 PM | #732 |
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Inoue seems to pull really bad episode followed by astounding episode a lot don't he?
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07-01-2021, 09:48 PM | #733 |
Alias: ZeroEnchiladas
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These past two nights of updates were enjoyable to read.
I have no real voice to add to this discussion but... just know that I was waiting for you to get to 43 and 44 ever since you started this thread. And man, did these writings on them really make it worth the wait. Mostly because like, I feel like these two episodes are the real tipping point of Kiva. Just from... well their everything. Especially 44 with well, Wataru's entire plan to, when you boil it down to basics, just well abort himself out of existence. |
07-01-2021, 09:49 PM | #734 |
take me to space
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Really feels like during the last two dozen episodes, you keeping going back and forth between finding all new highs and all new lows with this show. It's pretty amazing.
I remember distinctly that I dismissed most of this episode from the get-go because, yeah, it is incredibly stupid and yet still meant to be somewhat serious, and I had been trying to ignore the fact that Castle Doran had a convenient time travel door after the last time they used it for Nago. I guess looking back at it now, I can maybe look past that and just appreciate the pathos of a bunch of people meeting their future son in a dramatic moment, and the image if Kiva and 1986 IXA fighting side-by-side is neat. Obviously not as iconic as the movie's version, but still. Also an episode late to discuss, but I felt like saying now that I thiiink the triangle between Mio, Taiga and Wataru was the most interested I was in any character dynamics in this show. I do think Maya is cool, and she and Otoya getting closer is surprisingly engaging, but I never quite bought Yuri's stake in it so all the waiting around for that stuff to move along was kinda boring, but every second of the 08 love triangle was just so tinged with bloodthirsty and awkward tension in every direction that it got me kinda hooked!? Of course, then Mio jumped in front of Wataru's spiky feet and I was like "oh, that's it, huh...". Like, I don't know what conclusion I was ultimately hoping for, but I'm pretty sure I was dreading (yet perhaps also sadly expecting) that the woman of this dynamic would just get abruptly offed for angst's sake, and sure enough...! Enjoy France, Mio... Last edited by FreshToku; 07-01-2021 at 10:03 PM.. |
07-01-2021, 10:50 PM | #735 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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These past two nights of updates were enjoyable to read.
I have no real voice to add to this discussion but... just know that I was waiting for you to get to 43 and 44 ever since you started this thread. And man, did these writings on them really make it worth the wait. Mostly because like, I feel like these two episodes are the real tipping point of Kiva. Just from... well their everything. Especially 44 with well, Wataru's entire plan to, when you boil it down to basics, just well abort himself out of existence. Quote:
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I remember distinctly that I dismissed most of this episode from the get-go because, yeah, it is incredibly stupid and yet still meant to be somewhat serious, and I had been trying to ignore the fact that Castle Doran had a convenient time travel door after the last time they used it for Nago. I guess looking back at it now, I can maybe look past that and just appreciate the pathos of a bunch of people meeting their future son in a dramatic moment, and the image if Kiva and 1986 IXA fighting side-by-side is neat. Obviously not as iconic as the movie's version, but still.
But, yeah, this episode gives the Wataru/Otoya/Maya stuff a little bit more room to breathe than the movie. I liked how long (relatively) it took for Otoya to get on board with being a dad. He never fully embraces it, and he also doesn't love his kid telling him how to live his life. He's going to be an awesome dad someday! Maya's scenes were more touching, which I think is the right way to go. (Otoya being someone who can't quite put anything ahead of his own impulses means that your only options are the movie's overenthusiastic Stage Dad pride, or this version's slightly wary Mom's New Boyfriend vibe.) Maya's tentative, but starts to realize how much pain her son must be in to want to erase his own existence. She's... sort of going through some similar stuff right now! She is also dealing with loss brought about by a relationship, and trying to figure out how to redefine herself in the aftermath! She's a really good mom... unless you remember that she abandoned her son to a Henshin Device while she hid in a cave. Quote:
Also an episode late to discuss, but I felt like saying now that I thiiink the triangle between Mio, Taiga and Wataru was the most interested I was in any character dynamics in this show. I do think Maya is cool, and she and Otoya getting closer is surprisingly engaging, but I never quite bought Yuri's stake in it so all the waiting around for that stuff to move along was kinda boring, but every second of the 08 love triangle was just so tinged with bloodthirsty and awkward tension in every direction that it got me kinda hooked!?
Of course, then Mio jumped in front of Wataru's spiky feet and I was like "oh, that's it, huh...". Like, I don't know what conclusion I was ultimately hoping for, but I'm pretty sure I was dreading (yet perhaps also sadly expecting) that the woman of this dynamic would just get abruptly offed for angst's sake, and sure enough...! Enjoy France, Mio... But I don't think you're wrong? About which was the better triangle? I love Maya (that face), but once she showed up, we were just watching Otoya and Yuri's relationship collapse in slow motion. There was really no tension to it. Otoya/Maya was such a foregone conclusion that it sapped a lot of the Violin-Making Is A Metaphor scenes of the betrayal they should've had. It ended beautifully, but the road to that ending dragged a bit. Conversely, the 2008 triangle had so many surprising moves and motivations that I really wasn't sure where they'd go with it. Unfortunately, I never got to find out. yaaaaaay
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07-02-2021, 02:29 AM | #736 |
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Ah yes, the one with the most complex suicide plan ever devised by man.
Jokes aside, we’re in the home stretch of the show, and with it, we’ve run out of new Fangires. These are the last two. Polar Bear Fangire True name: Commandment to the Dissipating Spices (淫蕩なる香辛料への戒め Intō naru Kōshinryō e no Imashime) Human identity: N/A Class: Beast Rank: Pawn Actor: Daisuke Egawa (voice) And the one who isn’t a repaint of a previous one. Bat Fangire True name: The Dawn Sleeps, A Magnificent Story's Ending (暁が眠る、素晴らしき物語の果て Akatsuki ga Nemuru, Subarashiki Monogatari no Hate) Human identity: N/A Class: N/A Rank: King Actor: Shinya Niiro And that’s it for my regular feature of this thread. Next time, if I’m not taking part in the reviews themselves, I’ll be either evolving my previous regular features or talking about the episode or references within the episode. |
07-02-2021, 08:45 AM | #737 |
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Nothing to say regarding my reply to ep. 40? Still I had a long text in the first place about ep. 41 here. Though yeah I'm currently falling behind in the episodes here, due to other matters (not talking about my Gaim cover in KR watch, but real life stuff).
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KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 41 - “LULLABY: RELEASE THE HEART”
Like, maybe it’s the Pride Month talking, but this whole Otoya/Maya story could easily be read as a story about finding love wherever you want, regardless of society’s expectations. Similarly, Wataru’s story could easily be read as a story about gender fluidity, and the rejection of binary labels in favor of defining yourself as Yourself. These are stories where characters opt out of impossible choices that don’t reflect their truths, instead finding solace in the knowledge that they’re following their heart. They love themselves, and that’s better than pleasing someone else. I mostly don’t care if I’m reading too much into this episode. I love it, that Inoue’s work has these sorts of interpretations available to it. One of his big theses is that Labels Are Dumb, and combining that with his usual passions like Self-Actualization and Systems Don’t Care About You gives us these episodes that have some heartwarmingly queer interpretations. It’s the sort of story that allows characters to define themselves according to their own feelings, rather than mold themselves into an unwanted shape. Having this sort of big-tent humanism randomly pop up in the same episode where Saga has a flying saucer fleet and Jiro in Garulu Form fails to murder Otoya while they're both bathing, it’s such a pleasant surprise. I will always be grateful to Inoue for crafting something I’m able to find such positivity in, even if it’s by accident. Quote:
It takes a minute to reveal itself, though, which honestly just makes it all the more rewarding. Shima’s abysmal leadership causes Kengo to realize that he’s been trying to hurt Wataru as a way of covering for his own self-loathing, and I’m not even sure if that’s a point in Shima’s favor or not. (He basically tells Nago that his leadership style is belittling his employees until they get better or quit, so that dude can just go completely to hell.) It leads to a truly beautiful scene of Kengo trying to mend fences with Wataru, telling him that Kengo only sees him as a human, and would it be okay if they were bros again. It. Is. So. Lovely. It immediately made me forget the last however many episodes of Kengo being a dismissive prick, because him and Wataru are bros. They are. And you can see it on Wataru’s face! He is smiling through the tears… as he tells Kengo no. No, they can’t be bros, because Wataru can’t live as a human.
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He has to tell Taiga no as well, in the very next scene. No, he can’t join the Fangires. He’s saying no to everyone, because they want him to ignore a part of himself. He can’t be the human that his friends need, and he can’t be the Fangire that his family needs. He’s locked himself away from the world because it’s full of people who want him to conform to their idea of him.
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And then he gets a visit from his mom, in a dream, and it’s perfect. She’s doing that perfect Kiva thing of letting someone else pass along Otoya’s advice to Wataru. Otoya was in love with a Fangire, but he never cared about that label. He didn’t love a Fangire; he loved Maya. He loved her soul, and he knew that she loved his soul. The specifics, the way society viewed that love, he couldn’t have cared less. And that acceptance, that ability to see past the nonsense of systems to find the truth of a person, that’s what made Maya realize that she was really in love with Otoya.
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So when she sees her son unable to fit into either the Fangire world or the human world, and how worthless that makes him feel, she imparts that wisdom of his father. Wataru isn’t human or Fangire: he’s Wataru. Live in the world, and be true to yourself. Don’t let anyone make you be anything you don’t want to be, and don’t let anyone make you feel less than yourself for not adhering to their labels. It’s a pep talk that’s a million times better than it seemed like it was going to be, because it just side-steps the tokusatsu dilemma in favor of something universal and sensitive. Wataru just needs to stop caring about what the world wants him to be, and find strength in being what he wants to be.
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It’s just a really beautiful episode. I loved how it wrapped in the Otoya story in such a thoughtful way. We’re hitting the end of the show, and this episode clears the air enough to let our heroes fight for what they believe in. Otoya’s seen his monster buddies all get turned into roleplay items by King, so he’s ready to fight. Wataru’s back to believing in himself, and that means opposing Taiga. This feels like a well-earned level-up for our heroes, and it’s clearly arriving just when they need it most.
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Otoya's compassion is one his greatest qualities for sure. His music redeemed Oomura and now his gift of friendship spurred the Arms Monsters to change as well. Jirou especially has come a long way from trying to murder Otoya to risking his life to protect him and that protection now applies to Wataru who is the legacy of Otoya and his love for Maya.
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07-02-2021, 10:43 AM | #738 |
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The Mio situation is really the same thing. We haven't had, to my memory, a single conversation between Mio and either Wataru or Taiga about what that brotherly bond means to either of them. When Mio's suggested that Wataru murder Taiga, it mostly reads like Wataru is against cold-blooded murder, because that's pretty firmly established. Taiga talks about Wataru as a friend and a lieutenant, but rarely (to Mio) as a brother. Most of her experience with Wataru and Taiga is them battling each other? The idea that Mio wants to protect their familial bond is something I can see the show deciding, but not one I can see Mio deciding. She's way too outside that dynamic to have such a sudden shift in her priorities.
(That, and her flashbacks right before she gets involved seem entirely focused on Taiga, and his attempt to protect her from blame/punishment. Having her decision be rooted in protecting Wataru seems like the complete opposite of what the show is giving us in the moment.) The tragedy of this love triangle is how it's escalated by concerns outside of love. Like how Jirou was concerned about his race's extinction, Taiga is concerned about maintaining Fangire tradition. The moral here should be that love is not a device to solve those problems. Love should only be love's sake. So that's why I believe Mio's heroic sacrifice was out of a love deeper than what she had expressed before, as that feeling became even stronger from that understanding of the importance of love whether it's romantic, platonic, familial or unconditional. Quote:
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KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 44 - “PUNK: BACK TO FATHER”
ha ha ha ha INOUE FOREVER. You guys. Of all the ways I thought this episode could go, based on how the last one ended, it didn’t even cross my mind that Wataru would use Castle Doran’s way-more-of-a-problem-solving-option-than-when-Jiro-first-described-it-to-Nago Time Door to travel to 1986 and pull a reverse Back To The Future to prevent his parents from getting together. It is simultaneously absurd and poignant, which is what makes Inoue one of my favorite tokusatsu storytellers. Quote:
It ignores a whole bunch of collateral damage (Megumi and her brother would completely cease to exist, so I guess we know how little non-Mio people matter to Wataru; pretty sure Wataru has directly or indirectly saved a ton of lives, which are now Fangire food), but this thing never even gets off the blocks. See, Wataru showed up a couple days/weeks (?) too late, since Yuri is breaking up with Otoya.
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Probably goes without saying, but this was one of my favorite developments in all of Kiva. The emotional maturity of Yuri to be thankful for the good times she had with Otoya, acknowledge the end of them, and choose to move on? Fantastic. And she stomps on Otoya’s foot as she goes, just to let him know that he handled this less maturely than she deserved? HELL YES. It’s a template for how to break up with someone, and of all the lessons a tokusatsu show can teach impressionable children, this is one of the most useful. Don’t cling to a situation that is deteriorating. Understand the difference between a relationship that can be repaired, and one that needs to end. Be grateful for the positive times you shared with someone. Realize that you are allowed to still care for someone you’ve broken up with. For a show that has dramatized a relationship with more detail and complexity than I‘ve ever seen a Kamen Rider series attempt, this was such a beautiful coda to a messy, fascinating couple.
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07-02-2021, 11:17 AM | #739 |
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No offense but, I feel that you're elevating Otoya's morality way higher than he should be here. I'd think that if you talk about music, it's about his skills, which I'd not think it's related to morality, albeit yeah I'd cite Otoya redeeming Oomura as one of his most moral moments, because Oomura is a male AND a Fangire. Not Otoya, but there's many outright villainous characters who would be incredibly skilled/knowledgable at art, like Aizen from Bleach being instructor in caligraphy; traits like passion or determination isn't related to moral (there're determined villains who wouldn't give up to defeat like Masamune in Ex-Aid). About redeeming others, I don't think that you'd necessarily need good traits to achieve that, like in Ex-Aid, the one that softens.. uh... Taiga (don't be confused!) is Nico, who although developed to be better too, is someone who is spiteful, petty, selfish, obnoxious, bratty, etc. And even then Nico developing better can be applied to this as well, as Taiga's the reason for it, which is (he's used to be nice in the past, but still he's totally changed) someone selfish, arrogant, downright unpleasant and couldn't care less about any of the patients the Bugsters infected. I'd like to point out too that, Jiro and Otoya is fully friends now, but Jiro trying to kill Otoya before wasn't a one-sided conflict, it was mutual, Otoya had a bone to pick with Jiro as well before, for his behavior to women or being a rival for women's affections. To a lesser extent, he refused to help the Arms Monsters before unless it involves Yuri, though of course they're fully brothers in arms now, but taking long time for that speaks for itself to me.
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07-02-2021, 01:48 PM | #740 |
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Sorry! Wednesday was super busy, and by the time I could post anything, it was either a response or a new episode post. Quote:
For you to find positivity (though I would not consider being true to yourself as positivity) by accident, well I'd think it depends on the audience on how they take the work... it'd not be determined by actual quality, like if someone can find much more meaning than someone elses do in a work the latter dismissed, and this would also involve someone regarding non-Inoue work that you can probably dismiss.
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Wataru definitely isn't thinking clearly here. This is his first time meeting Yuri though so he may not know she's the future mother of Megumi and Mitsuhide. Even without the unintentional collateral damage of trying to split up his parents, I don't agree with Wataru's means at all.
And, absolutely, Wataru's plan is utterly misguided. He's just trying to do his Final Form of running away, and it's so wrong-headed that no one in the cast is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Agreed! It was very smart of this episode to juxtapose Yuri's clear-eyed maturity with Wataru's childish self-negation.
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